Winding

All these ups and down, our little isolated dinghies on the waves, drifting around and tossed by wily seas, and when we reach for each other we are swept out by swift tides, forced to face the swell alone. The rain sweeps in, how cold April this year and yesterday I swear I saw snow falling, but it makes the blooms last longer. I wrap myself in February layers, run along the deserted river, wonder at the city around my skin. A restauranteur around the block writes a eulogy for a whole life, and I cry again. I cry every day now, it's an anodyne, I'm grateful for it.

An old friend speaks of Los Angeles like a ghost town, like it's dead in the water. We describe street scenes, turn our cameras to face our windows. Tomorrow it'll be so hot, she says, but they closed the beach. Where I came from, nature isn't ours to close, but who am I to argue in a pandemic. The rain eases slightly. I moved here for the culture, and what would I find here in its stead? I'm grateful I moved here for the buildings, for the soft curves of bridges, for spirits that are long since dead and buried. They are still here.

After we hang up, I send her a video of the car that passes each night, playing New York, New York so loud it reverberates against the brick tenements of the Lower East. Tell her New York isn't worried. New York outlives us all, and it will outlive this. 

Yes, she writes from her dinghy. New York is a struggle, but it is worth it. We sail on into the night, but the sleep is sweeter, again.